Adobe Providing Photoshop CS2 and Other Products Free for Download? Not Really!!!

A few days back an interesting news came that Adobe is giving away free copies of CS2 products such as Adobe Photoshop CS2, Creative Suite, etc to public. Anyone can download the full offline installers or setup files along with a genuine product key to install the full version of these products.

Adobe_Photoshop.png

Actually following webpage at official website of Adobe is providing offline installers files and product keys of various CS2 products such as Adobe Photoshop:

Advertisement

www.adobe.com/downloads/cs2_downloads/index.html

The news was first posted on some well known websites such as cnet, gizmodo, forbes, etc. As soon as the news started spreading all over the net, Adobe had to make following official announcement about it:

Effective December 13, Adobe disabled the activation server for CS2 and other products because of a technical glitch. These products were released over 7 years ago and do not run on many modern operating systems. But to ensure that any customers activating those old versions can continue to use their software, we issued a serial number directly to those customers. While this might be interpreted as Adobe giving away software for free, we did it to help our customers.

So got the point? Adobe didn’t release these products free to public. They actually provided those download links and product keys to help their customers who have already purchased these products in past.

Following message from Dov (an Adobe staff member) will also clear the things:

Adobe is absolutely not providing free copies of CS2. What is true is that Adobe is terminating the activation servers for CS2 and that for existing licensed users of CS2 who need to reinstall their software, copies of CS2 that don’t require activation but do require valid serial numbers are available. (Special serial numbers are provided on the page for each product download). You are only legally entitled to download and install with that serial number if you have a valid license to the product!

So Adobe is not providing these products free to download and if you didn’t purchase licenses of these products, downloading and installing these products using the above mentioned page will be considered as illegal.

Advertisement

I can see many tech blogs posting about this news but very few of them care about telling the fact to public…

Published in: Software

About the author: Vishal Gupta (also known as VG) has been awarded with Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award. He holds Masters degree in Computer Applications (MCA). He has written several tech articles for popular newspapers and magazines and has also appeared in tech shows on various TV channels.

Comments

NOTE: Older comments have been removed to reduce database overhead.

  1. @Aryaman Roy
    I think you didnt understand the purpose of this topic. I didnt want to share the news “Hey! Adobe is giving away free copies of Photoshop CS2”. I wanted to tell people that its not a free offer from Adobe, it would be considered as illegal if you download and install those copies without purchasing a license of them from Adobe. Its already mentioned in the topic that I was aware of the news since the first day but I didnt share it here because it was illegal to download them. But since many blogs are fooling people, I had to post about the facts.

  2. VG, no offense please. And by meaning late, I meant that you are late about whistling the blow (or blowing the whistle).

  3. I think that this info is not correct – I don’t buy any Adobe’s product in the past, never have a real serial number for it, but I download and install any of CS2 from this site without any problem!

  4. That’s not the problem Nick, you are not forbidden for downloading it and installing it, the thing they said is that you should not do it if you have not purchased the product. In other words it’s your choice not to download it because they consider it illegal.

  5. Adobe won’t be giving anything free. Its just a cost cutting measure. They will save money by re assigning these servers for new versions. No one is buying these old products anymore. Many companies giveaway such old versions, but not Adobe. Nice share VG.

  6. Someone at Adobe new this would happen. Thousand of people have downloaded and installed these products, and they are fully activated now. Without an activation server to monitor it, there is nothing they can do about it. It turned into a giveaway whether or not they wanted it to be one or not. And even if they turned these servers back on, it is VERY easy to block these servers using your HOSTS file. A silly, poorly planned idea Adobe.

  7. Vishal, I am agree with you. Adobe can’t give their products for free, even the CS2 products links which are listed with serial numbers, are actually not free but I tried to install Photoshop CS2. When I installed, it only once ask me serial number in beginning and skip the product registration and updates. Photoshop installed successfully and again didn’t ask me the serial number. Actually in my sight, Adobe starts to provide its CS2 products freely and without old products serial number because when I clearly installed Photoshop CS2, it didn’t ask me old serial number of Photshop CS and even Photoshop 7.0. So I think this products would legal to download and install. Anyway thanks for sharing this post and alert all other users about it.

  8. It should be considered as public dominium, as these products are very old and most people is not interested on it. May be an abandonware…

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

NOTE: Your comment may not appear immediately. It'll become visible once we approve it.